[716] Plin. lib. xxiii. cap. 2. Palladius, Octob. 18. edit. Gesneri,
ii. p. 994.
[717] Proofs of this will be found in Columella De Re Rustica, lib.
xii. c. 19, 20. Cato De Re Rust. cap. cv. and cap. cvii., and Plin.
lib. xiv. cap. 21.
[718] Proofs that the ancients mixed their wine with sea-water may
be found in Pliny, lib. xxiii. cap. 1. and lib. xiv. cap. 20. Celsus
exclaims against it, lib. ii. cap. 25. Dioscorides, lib. v. cap. 7,
9, &c. p. 573. See Petri Andreæ Matthioli Commentarii in sex libros
Dioscoridis de materia medica. Venetiis, in officina Erasmi Vincentii
Valgrisii, 1553, fol.
[719] Plin. lib. xiv. cap. 20. This method of proof is given more
circumstantially in Geopon. lib. vii. cap. 15.
[720] Pallad. August. c. ii. vol. ii. p. 977.
[721] [The solvent action of water upon lead is highly interesting on
account of the very general use of leaden pipes and cisterns lined
with this metal. From the researches of Lieut.-Col. Yorke, published
in the Philosophical Magazine for August 1834 and January 1846, it
would appear that a bright leaden vessel containing pure water, such
as distilled water, and _exposed to the air_, soon becomes oxidized
and corroded; oxide of lead being readily detected _in solution_ by
means of sulphuretted hydrogen and other sensitive tests; but river and
spring water exert a much less or no such solvent power, the carbonates
and sulphates in such water preventing it. It is on this account that
leaden vessels are used with such impunity, the crust which forms
upon the metal entirely preventing all further action. However, as
this crust consists partially of carbonate of lead, which is a very
dangerous poison, great care should be taken on cleaning or scraping
such cisterns to avoid using the water in which particles of the salt
may have become diffused. Leaden cisterns are sometimes rendered unsafe
in consequence of iron or zinc pipes being soldered or let into them,
thus giving rise to galvanic action, which greatly facilitates the
solution of the lead.]
[722] Plin. lib. xiv. cap. 20. The same author relates a great many
arts practised in regard to wine.
[723] Plin. lib. xiv. cap. 19. That this method was practised in Italy
is confirmed by Columella, lib. xii. cap. 20, and Didymus in Geopon.
lib. vi. cap. 18. It is mentioned also by Dioscorides and Theophrastus.
[724] Plin. lib. xxiii. cap. 1.
[725] Ibid. lib. xxxvi. cap. 24.
[726] “The wine of the island of Zante is almost as strong as brandy.
It is supposed that this proceeds from the unslaked lime which is
usually mixed with it, under the pretence that it then keeps better,
and is fitter to be transported by sea.”--D’Arvieux, Voyages.
[727] Christophori a Vega de Arte Medendi, lib. ii. cap. 2.
[728] “No one sells wine at Tunis but the slaves, and this wine is not
under the jurisdiction of the Tunisian government. They put lime in it,
which renders it very intoxicating.”--Thevenot’s Voyages.
[729] In Anleitung zur Verbesserung der Weine in Teutschland, Franck.
and Leipsic, 1775, 8vo, the moderate use of lime is recommended. In
France crude potash is put into wine instead of lime. [Acidity in wine
was formerly corrected in this country by the addition of quick-lime.
This furnishes a clue to Falstaff’s observation that there was “lime in
the sack,” which was a hit at the landlord, as much as to say his wine
was worth little, having its acidity thus disguised. Carbonate of soda
is now most frequently used for the purpose.]
[730] “The properties of lead and arsenic are well understood; but what
those of the ancient gypsums were, will require an explanation; as
there seems to be just reason to believe, that some of them contained
a portion of metallic or arsenical earth.”--A Candid Examination of
what has been advanced on the Colic of Poitou and Devonshire, by James
Hardy, London, i. 8vo, p. 84.
[731] Plin. lib. xxxv.
[732] Geopon. pp. 462, 483, 494.
[733] Ibid. vii. 12, p. 483.
[734] Ibid. p. 486.
[735] Ibid. p. 486.
[736] Lib. iv. tit. 3. § 13.
[737] Digestor. lib. ix. tit. 2. leg. 27. § 15. Later jurists call the
adulteration of wine _crimen stellionatus_.
[738] De pace imperii publica. Ulmæ 1698, p. 632.
[739] Goldast. Constit. Imper. tom. ii. p. 114.
[740] Mémoires sur les questions proposées par l’Académie de Bruxelles
en 1777. A Bruxelles 1778, 4to.
[741] Traité de la Police, par De la Mare, p. 514. [“In France it
does not appear that lead in any form has been employed in making
or altering their wines. On the 13th of March 1824, a member of the
Chamber of Deputies moved for a law to punish the practice. The motion
was rejected, because neither litharge nor any other preparation of
lead was shown to have been used, nor was any instance cited in which
it had been detected, though an ordinance was made against its use in
1696.”--Redding’s History and Description of Wines. Lond. 1836, p. 336.]
[742] “I wish those who adulterate wine were punished with greater
severity; for this execrable fraud, as well as many more deceptions,
has been invented in the present age; and a villany by which the
colour, taste, smell and substance of wine are so changed as to
resemble that of another country, has been spread not only through
Germany, but also through France, Hungary and other kingdoms. It was
invented, they say, by a monk named Martin Bayr, of Schwarzen-Eychen
in Franconia. He undoubtedly merits eternal damnation for rendering
noxious and destructive a liquor used for sacred purposes, and most
agreeable to the human body; thus contaminating and debasing a gift of
nature inferior to none called forth from the bosom of the earth by
the influence of the solar rays; and for converting, like a sanguinary
destroyer of the human race, that bestowed upon us by Nature to promote
mirth and joy, and as a soother of our cares, into a poison and the
cause of various distempers. But if the debasers of the current coin
are punished capitally, what punishment ought to be inflicted upon
the person who hath either killed or thrown into diseases all those
who used wine? The former by their fraud injure a few, but the latter
exposes to various dangers people of all ages, and of both sexes;
occasions barrenness in women; brings on abortions and makes them
miscarry; corrupts and dries up the milk of nurses; excites gouty pains
in the body; causes others in the bowels and reins, than which none can
be more excruciating; and produces ulcers in the intestines; in short,
his poison inflames, corrodes, burns, extenuates, and dries up; nor
does it allay, but increase thirst; for such is the nature of sulphur,
which, mixed with other noxious and poisonous things, the names of
which I should be ashamed to mention, is added to wine, before it has
done fermenting, in order to change its nature. This poison we have
been obliged to purchase for our friends, wives, children and selves,
at a high price; as wine has been scarce for several years past;
and it would seem that Nature had denied this liquor so long out of
revenge against her enemies and the destroyers of the whole human race.
You ought, therefore, most prudent fathers, not only to empty their
vessels, by throwing this poison into your river; but to cast alive
into the flames the sellers of this wine, and thus to punish poisoning
as well as robbery.”--Pirkheimeri Opera, Franck. 1610, fol. p. 136.
[This writer was the friend and contemporary of Albert Durer.]
[743] De docimasia vini lithargyrio mangonisati. Tubingæ 1707.
[744] De la Mare, Traité de la Police, i. 615.
[745] William Graham’s Art of making Wines from Fruit, Flowers and
Herbs. Sixth edit. London, 8vo.
[746] [A solution of sulphuretted hydrogen answers much better.]
[747] Anleitung zur Verbesserung der Weine in Teutschland, p. 32.
[748] Lib. xiv. cap. 20.
[749] [It acts by keeping the wine from contact with oxygen, which is
essential to the acetic fermentation.]
[750] This was done at Rothenburg on the Tauber in 1497. It was ordered
that half an ounce of pure sulphur should be employed for a cask
containing a tun of wine; and that when wine had been once exposed
to the vapour of sulphur, it should not undergo the same operation a
second time.
[751] In John Hornung’s Cista Medica, Norimbergæ 1625, there are two
letters from German physicians (Libavius and Doldius) respecting this
practice.
[752] Geopon. p. 486, 502.--Lemnius de Miraculis Occultis Naturæ,
Coloniæ, 1581, 8vo, p. 291.
[753] See Haushaltungs-Recht, Leipsic, 1716, 4to, p. 1393.
[754] Von Lersner, Chronica der Stadt Frankfurt, ii. p. 683. Wine
seasoned with mustard, and which was sold as boiled wine, was forbidden
at the same time. See p. 684. In the year 1484 wine mixed with the herb
mugwort was prohibited also.
[755] Anleitung, _ut supra_, p. 93, 128.
[756] See Redding’s History and Description of Modern Wines.